Adams gets to control schools for 2 more years

Gov. Hochul signed a two-year extension of mayoral control over New York City schools late Thursday night just minutes before it lapsed — with a last-minute tweak.

The down-to-the-wire stamp of approval signs into law a bill passed earlier this month by the state Legislature to extend Mayor Adams’ authority over city public schools for two years, while restructuring an oversight panel that monitors the schools.

Hochul and state lawmakers also agreed to an 11th-hour amendment to push back the timeline for making changes to the education oversight panel until January 2023.

Hochul’s signature came minutes before the previous bill authorizing mayoral control was to sunset. If Hochul had failed to sign the extension by midnight, the city would have temporarily reverted back to a system of community school boards that governed public schools before the state launched mayoral control in 2002 — a situation that Adams said would have created “madness” for the Education Department and Schools Chancellor David Banks.

Hochul said in a statement after inking the bill that mayoral control has “proven to be a successful model” and that “Mayor Adams... should be given the same opportunity as his predecessors.”

Adams thanked Hochul for “championing on behalf of our students and allowing me and Chancellor Banks to keep the politics out of our schools to provide bold and necessary programs for the betterment of our children.”

The extension gives Adams authority over the city Education Department — including the all-important responsibility of appointing a chancellor — until 2024. The deal also adds eight members to the Panel for Education Policy, the body that oversees the city Education Department, and gives members fixed terms so that it’s more difficult to remove them from the panel.

Adams and Banks opposed the changes to the panel, with Banks arguing that the restructuring “puts more bureaucracy in the way of making real change for kids.”

The changes to the panel were originally supposed to take effect as soon as the bill was signed, but Thursday’s amendment pushes the deadline to January 2023 to give the city “sufficient time to properly effectuate” the tweaks, according to Hochul’s statement.

According to two sources briefed on the matter, the last-minute deal on delaying the panel reforms came after Adams privately asked Hochul to push back the implementation date.

Hochul originally pushed for a four-year extension of mayoral control as part of the budget, but legislators opted for a shorter time frame despite advocacy from Adams’ team to adopt the governor’s proposal.

The mayoral control bill wasn’t the only major piece of education legislation crafted by state lawmakers this month.

The Assembly and Senate passed a bill earlier this year that would require the city to significantly reduce class sizes over the next five years. Advocates and the teachers union had been pushing Hochul to sign that bill, but it hasn’t been delivered to the governor..